


It's Time (For A True Display Of Skill)

by Cueyatl



Series: Soulmates AUs Collection (Multiple Fandoms) [2]
Category: League of Legends
Genre: (Small time travel is still time travel Ekko), Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Fighting, M/M, Piltover and Zaun rivalry, Soulmate-Identifying Timers, Soulmates, Time Travel, Zaun
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-18
Updated: 2016-11-18
Packaged: 2018-08-31 17:20:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8587096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cueyatl/pseuds/Cueyatl
Summary: Ekko's busy fighting some weird Zaunian creature again, trying to make his beloved city a better place, when some even more reckless than him guy appears out of nowhere, asking for help regarding his dangerously deffective Soul-Clock. [Soulmates AU -  Everyone has Clock above the heart counting down either to your eyes meeting your Soulmate's eyes, or to their death.)





	

**Author's Note:**

> Soulmates AU #2
> 
> Fandom: League of Legends
> 
> Pairing: Ekko/Ezreal (Ezko? Ekkreal?)
> 
> Type of Soulmate Universe: Everyone has Clock above the heart counting down either to your eyes meeting your Soulmate's eyes, or to their death. 
> 
> As usual, I welcome any critic, especially on grammar or orthograph since I'm here to improve those. 
> 
> The second part of the title is a quote from Ezreal ("Time for a true display of skill!") and the first part is just a reference to Ekko.
> 
> Important note: This story takes place, in theory, four years after what could be called the canon of the game. Also consider that League's lore is ever-changing, especially nowadays (2016) so this was written before the Piltover Update, using a mix of Ezreal's old backgrounds. I tried to be flexible so it could adapt to eventual changes, but still, take care...

**Ekko’s Zero-Drive had un-broken many things,** but it had permanently broken his Clock. Not that he cared much at the time it had happened, though. He had been fourteen, for goodness’ sake. Fourteen, and too busy trying to survive and save his friends to even bother about this whole “Soulmates” nonsense. 

Now that he was older, and most of his friends were gone (dead, missing, crazy or just gone), he sometimes did regret it. He wouldn’t have changed what he had done, but he felt somewhat sad at the thought of never knowing who his soulmate was. He hadn’t lost hope – hope was what gave him strength, in all aspects of his life – but he knew his chances had greatly diminished. 

Everyone was born with the same numerical Soul Clock on the chest, right above the heart. Well, anyone that was human or close to it anyway. It was counting down to two possible options. The first was the moment you would meet your Soulmate, that one person meant for you. The very second you would lock eyes with them, the clock would reach zero. The second option, far less pleasant, was your Soulmate’s death. 

For a lot of people, that was the biggest question of their lives. Was it counting down to love or death? Runeterra was not exactly safe and secure. And Zaun was even worse. 

But for Ekko, that had never been the question. No, the question was _how did it work?_ He had been fascinated from the beginning by the Clocks’ impossible gearings and cogs. He had poked it, researched it, and even got his hands on the clock of a dead man. Some parts, he had managed to understand. The rest, however, remained a complete mystery. 

And despite all of his studying, he still had no idea how to fix his clock.

Ekko sometimes thought about his soulmate and wondered if his Clock was broken too. He felt a twinge of remorse. The poor soul would be no doubt devastated to see their clock broken for no good reason. But nothing could be done. 

So at eighteen, Ekko decided to put the whole Soulmate business behind him for good. He hated giving up, and he wasn’t completely erasing all hopes of ever finding them, but he knew a hopeless battle when he saw one. 

Like, for example, the battle he was fighting right now.

The thin and reptile-like robot he was locked in combat with was nothing he’d ever seen before. It moved with incredible speed, crawling on the ground like a lizard, hissing as its metal claws scratched the ground. The mechanical monster was circling Ekko, seizing him. Ekko prepared himself to dodge as the monster seemed ready to pounce.

Suddenly there was a flash of light. To Ekko’s left, a form appeared from nowhere. Everything happened extremely fast. The second it took for Ekko to glance its way, realize it looked human and wonder if it was a threat, was all it took for the newcomer to shoot beams of light at the creature. The monster screeched in protestation and took a few steps back into the shadow.

Ekko, still standing in a defensive posture, took a better look at the figure. It was a young man, maybe three years older than Ekko. He was blond, messy, dressed in dirty travelling clothes and had marking under his eyes. His attitude transpired confidence and arrogance. He had goggles on his head and a large mechanical gauntlet on which was incrusted an impressive gem. From his look, Ekko could immediately tell he was from Piltover and he made a face. Pilties, he sneered internally. 

“Why’d you do that for?” he asked the blond, a bit more forcefully than was polite. “You just attacked a thing you know nothing about!”

“It was going to attack,” the blond shrugged, not fazed at all by Ekko’s aggressive tone. “Might as well attack first.”

“And people say I’m reckless…” Ekko snorted. “Anyway, stay out of this, Piltie. This is Zaun business. What’re you doin’ here, anyway?”

“I’m looking for someone people call ‘The Boy Who Shattered Time’,” the blond said. His eyes had not left the creature. He was following its movement with great attention, his gemmed-gauntlet hand twitching. Ekko wondered if he was going to attack again.

“For Zaun’s sake, it’s the Man who shattered time, not boy. I’m not fourteen anymore!” Ekko exclaimed. He was a grown man, now, damn it!

“Good luck with that,” Blondie snorted. “I’m twenty-three and people still call me ‘kid’.”

“Twenty-three?” Ekko exclaimed. “There’s no way you’re five years older than me! You’re too…” Ekko gestured wildly at him, catching the eye of the creature with his gesticulations.

“See what I mean?” Blondie seemed to take the insinuations rather well. “You and I, we just don’t have the look that goes with “grown mature adult” – face it, boy. But nevermind all that,” he waved aside. “We have more urgent matters at hand. Firstly, is it true you’ve dabbled in Soul Clocks mechanics?”

“That’s your first question?” Ekko raised an eyebrow at him. “Not _What is this thing and how are we going to beat it?_ ”

Blondie smiled a very piltoverian smile (i.e. a superior smirk). “That thing?” he jerked his chin toward the creature still crawling in the shadows, hungrier and angrier than ever. “That thing won’t be a problem. Look at it,” he said derisively, “it belongs in a museum.”

Typical Piltie.

“Last warning,” Ekko told him. “Go home. You don’t belong here. This is Zaun. And whatever it is you want to ask me, sorry, but you’re out of luck.”

“Oh, come on! You’re the only Time Mechanics authority I have at hands. They said you’re interested in the Clock’s mechanics and, trust me, I’m about to give you brand new data.”

Ekko could not outright lie and say he wasn’t a bit interested. Blondie wasn’t there because he was in the neighborhood and decided to drop by to say hello to a fellow engineer. Was he even an engineer? Ekko knew most of the mechanical minds in Piltover, if only by name and reputation, and that guy fit none of the descriptions. So he was there for a personal matter, probably involving his clock or one of his closed one’s clock. 

Humpf. 

Now was still not the time for that, though. The creature was looking twitchier and twitchier by the second. 

“You sure you want to fight that fight, Piltie?” Ekko asked, gripping his hands tighter around the hilt of his weapon. He didn’t have time to waste trying to save some lost Piltoverian in the middle of a fight. 

Blondie smiled a wicked smile, arming his gauntlet and taking aim at the creature.

“Sounds dangerous… _I’m in_.”

Maybe the creature heard him and thought enough provocation was enough, or maybe it had just run out of patience, but it immediately jumped at the Piltie. It leaped across the air, higher than Ekko could have imagined it capable of. Ekko raised his weapon, ready to swing it like a bat at the thing. From the corner of his eyes, he noticed that Piltie was not moving. Great – had he frozen in fear?

But no. Piltie, it turned out, was biding his time. The second the creature was at range, he fired several shots of different lights (it looked more magical than scientific). The creature screeched again - the smell of burning flesh reached Ekko’s nostrils – but continued its assault. It was about to land on the Piltie when he disappeared in a small flash of light, reappearing on Ekko’s right.

Ekko managed not to lose focus and kept his eyes on the target. He hit it with all his might, hearing a satisfying crack as it collided with the beast’s organic leg. The creature screamed. It turned its monstrous head toward Ekko and spat at him.

Ekko did not have time to dodge it completely. He felt the spit of the creature hit his feet as he dove to the side. Immediately, he felt his clothes dissolve and soon it was his skin that started burning and evaporating. Ekko cursed loudly.

Piltie fired shot after shot at the beast, making it step back just enough for Ekko to recover. His feet were done for, and there was no way he’d win this fight in his condition. Time to start over.

With the certitude that comes with habit, Ekko swiftly turned on his Zero-Drive. Everything blurred. He felt his body resist the Time-Travel, as it always did, for a second, then let go. A blink of an eye later, he was back on his feet. He looked around. He was just before the fight. Piltie was about to open his mouth to taunt the creature.

 

**“Sounds-ouch!” he winced, but recovered quickly.** “Sounds dangerous,” he breathed a bit more difficulty, “I’m in.”

Ekko only had a split second to contemplate this inexplicable change. Piltie hadn’t been in pain the first time, had he?

The creature leaped again at the Piltie. Just like last time, Blondie fired at it and then blinked to safety. Ekko swung his weapon at the creature and immediately dove to the right, dodging the acid spit and getting back on his feet in one fluid movement. Piltie was not losing any time. The distraction provided by Ekko had allowed him to fire two or three more shots at the beast. 

The crawling creature was now starting to feel the effect of having its skin repetitively poked at with magic shots. It screeched in pain several times, swinging its tail furiously. From his burnt wounds, no blood was dripping, as Piltie’s magic shots had cauterized the injuries while inflecting them. 

It growled at them and they smirked back in unison. Suddenly, its tail swished at them. Piltie blinked away again in the nick of time, but Ekko was sent flying right next to the creature. With a second only to make a decision before the monstrosity tore his head apart from his body with its long sharp metal teeth, Ekko hit the Zero-Drive. Third time is the charm, as they said. 

Time rewinded right where it had the first time, a micro-second before Piltie taunted Beastie.

 

**“Sound-argh!” This time Piltie griped at his heart with one hand, staggering.** He breathed in sharply.

Ekko looked at him worriedly. Usually, he wouldn’t have cared, but he knew how the fight was going to go and he needed Piltie to be ready. And then there was the change… This time, Piltie hadn’t even finished his sentence. Ekko felt a twinge of dread in his gut. Could it be the Zero-Drive? Was he responsible for this? But how? The monster didn’t seem affected…

Suddenly, the creature was upon them. Ekko jumped to the side and Blondie blinked away to a safer distance. Ekko glanced at him: he seemed fine. Ekko looked back at the creature and cursed. The whole plan was for nothing, the pattern was changed.

Piltie fired a few shots at the beast while Ekko got back on his feet. The creature screeched and spat acid in retaliation. Both Ekko and Piltie dodged it but just barely. 

“I’ll distract it,” Piltie said, “so you can run around it and hit it in the back – where it doesn’t have acid spitting extremities.”

“Humpf,” Ekko reluctantly agreed. 

And then Piltie blinked in. Ekko almost gaped at the sheer recklessness, but that would have been the pot calling the kettle black. While Blondie was firing at the creature, Ekko sprinted around it. He reached the back, and jumped on it, striking with all his might. He heard something break, but it didn’t sound like bones. The creature screamed. In its fury, it clawed at Piltie, who blinked away just to land on the path of the tail. He was sent flying with a yelp, crashing against a rock. And that, sounded like a broken bone. Spine. 

The creature seemed to agree with Ekko’s diagnostic of Blondie, for it turned away from him, now only set on the Zaunian. It opened its mouth to spit – and Ekko restarted it all before he could melt under its acid.

 

**Piltie was suddenly alive and back on his feet, only to drop to his knees with a painful grimace.**

“ _Damn it_ ,” he swore. “Not _now_ , idiot.”

“You alright, Piltie?” Ekko asked carefully, eyeing the monster – it still hadn’t jumped on them, probably wondering if Piltie was not just going to die on his own. 

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Blondie breathed out. “My Soulmate isn’t, though. That _idiot_ is going to get me killed for good this time – I’m starting to think he’s doing it on purpose.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“That’s why I was looking for you,” Piltie got back up and the creature growled. “Something’s wrong with either my Clock or my Soulmate. He keeps dying and not dying.”

“ _What?_ ” Ekko knew that wasn’t possible. Sure, there were the few odd cases of undead. He’d seen some, fought some, killed some (again) and drank a beer with some. He’d met people whose soulmates had turned undead. The clocks stopped and did not start back. Undead was still dead – Clock was still at zero. How could Piltie’s Soulmate un-die? Unless…

“On your right!” Piltie shouted. 

Ekko had let himself become distracted and the creature had used it to pounce. Ekko threw himself out of its way. The thing landed right where he had been and turned immediately to him, claws out, mouth opened. 

Ekko was about to hit the zero-drive, but Piltie was faster. He blinked in between Ekko and the creature, firing a rain of shots at it. The now familiar smell of burnt skin filled the air again as the creature stepped back into the shadows, delayed but not beaten. It went back to circling them.

“Did you just jump in front of a giant acid-spitting lizard just to poke at it with magic lights?” Ekko asked Piltie, getting back to his feet.

“It can spit acid?” Piltie asked, raising a disbelieving eyebrow. Ekko almost hit himself- _of course_ Piltie didn’t remember. 

The creature leaped at them ( _Again_ , Ekko thought), set on proving that _why, yes, it could spit acid_. This time, it managed to hit both of them: Ekko on the shoulder, Piltie on the elbow. Ekko decided the injuries were not bad enough to warrant a do-over. 

“Hey, Piltie,” he called. Blondie was busy firing at the creature again. “I may have an idea what’s wrong with your Soulmate.”

“Really?” Piltie seemed overjoyed. “Awesome!”

“Yeah, and I think it’s my fault,” Ekko continued. He had come with only one thing that could explain someone un-dying: time-travel. Not only would it bring the person “back to life”, but it would possibly disrupt the Clock enough to hurt. Now that answer also brought its own fair share of questions. Mainly: how many others were affected by this? “Do you know a lot of other cases similar to yours?” Ekko asked him.

“No. I’ve looked around a lot, but no one seemed to have the same issue. I’ve seen some pretty insane things, though. Once, I met this guy who – Hey do you mind? I was talking!” Piltie fired more shots at the creature which had interrupted him by trying to claw out his head. “But how exactly can it be your fault?”

“I’m trying to figure it out. Remember my – watch out – my nickname?” Ekko dodged the tail and hit the left leg but it didn’t seem to do much to do much to the creature. Only Piltie’s shots seemed to be really effective. 

“Yeah, ‘The Boy who – ”

“Hey!”

“Sorry – Man Who Shattered Time’?”

“Do you know how I got it?”

“I’m guessing you shattered Time?”

“Haha,” Ekko fake-laughed, rolling his eyes. Piltie still didn’t seem to mind. Did nothing get on this guy’s nerves?

“Seriously, though,” Piltie said, “did you break the time line or something?”

“I didn’t break anything! The timeline was already this broken when I got here!”

Piltie laughed and Ekko tried his best to look like he had meant it as a joke. 

“Anyway, I invented this device – I call it the Zero-Drive. I can go back in time for a few seconds. It resets everything. And you seem to hurt whenever I do it. Not to mention, the more I rewind, the more it seems to hurt you. Probably because I un-kill your Soulmate.”

“That explains it!”

“Yeah, but I don’t know why no other cases have presented themselves and – ”

“No, not that!” Piltie interrupted him, blinking to his side. “That,” he said, waving his gauntlet in Ekko’s face so that he could see it while keeping an eye on the monster. 

“What about it?”

“True Shot Barrage!” Piltie exclaimed as if it explained everything.

“True what?”

“You’re familiar with magic?”

“No, I’m more on the science train,” Ekko admitted. 

“It’s okay – I’m rubbish at science. I’ll keep it simple, then. That gem charges itself in different energies over time. You may have noticed, I have three kinds of shots.”

“The long blue one, the weak yellow one and the gold glitter one?”

“Excatly. Blue takes about three seconds to recharge enough for me to fire; gold takes around seven; yellow around one. And the Arcane Shift takes something like ten.”

“I’m guessing that’s your ‘blink’?’

Piltie nodded.

“I have a fourth one – the True Shot Barrage. That one is massive. Cuts through almost anything. But it takes two minutes to charge back. The thing is, I used that to get through another weird thing a few seconds ago, on my way to here. But it’s almost back to full power.”

“It wasn’t affected by the Rewind,” Ekko realized.

“Exactly. Magic! Give me fifteen more seconds and an opening, and I’ll destroy that thing.”

“Don’t know if we’re going to make it to fifteen, an opening is just not happening,” Ekko hissed between to dodges. 

“Then rewind,” Piltie suggested.

“You’ll forget everything,” Ekko countered.

“Rewind,” Piltie insisted. “And just tell me to True Shot Barrage that thing. I’ll hit first and ask you questions later, trust me.”

“Oh, I have no doubt,” Ekko sighed. “Tell me when you’re ready.”

“Ten,” Piltie said, blinking away from getting mauled.

Something still didn’t seem right to Ekko in his theory. So Piltie hurt because his Clock had trouble keeping track of the “alive/dead” status of his Soulmate. Okay. But if that was enough to cause so much pain, why had no other cases appear? Piltie’s Clock must have been a special case – something else, something more, was making it particularly hard for the Clock to endure the Rewind. 

And something else was amiss.

“Five.”

How did it happen several times? Ekko was the only one who remembered anything after the rewind. Which meant Piltie’s Soulmate did not. And if did not, then he was doomed to repeat his death – which he seemed to do. Eventually, Ekko would have won his fight and stopped rewinding, meaning Piltie’s Soulmate would have died again and this time not come back to life. He should be dead. Piltie should only have experienced it once – the first time. But clearly, he was still alive and ready to get killed today, so he hadn’t. How had he dodged death while not knowing what was going to happen? 

He was going to ask – was going to share his musing with Piltie – so he turned toward him. And Piltie turned toward him. It was the first time their eyes met, Ekko realized. Until then, one had always been watching out for the creature. 

“Ready – Oh,” Piltie said, his manic and self-assured grin morphing itself in a comical expression of surprise. Piltie’s hand reached for his clock and Ekko just knew it had reached zero.

The creature roared, drawing back their attention towards them and Ekko realized something else. Piltie had a clean shot. The creature was going to leap at him. It was an easy trajectory. Considering the insane aiming skills Piltie had demonstrated so far, Ekko had no doubt he was going to hit bull’s eye and split the creature in two. No need for rewind, right? 

After that, they could talk. Introduce each other. Get to know each other. 

Face each other.

Ekko felt trapped. Panicked. Behind him he could hear Piltie charging his Barrage. Ekko glanced down at the Zero-Drive.

 

**“Sounds – uuuuurgh. _Damn it, not now, you little_...!”** Just like last time, Piltie fell to his knees, clenching his heart.

“Hey, Piltie!” Ekko shouted, gesticulating to get the monster’s attention away from him.

“Huh?” Piltie got back to his feet. Ekko was careful to avoid his eyes.

“True Shot Barrage!”

“How do you - it’s not charged yet – wait- what? Oh nevermind.”

Piltie obviously decided that questions could wait. The creature leapt, ready to crush Ekko, claws and teeth out. Piltie took aim, charged and fired.

He had not been joking when he had said “massive”. The Barrage was at least five times Ekko’s width. It was somewhere between gold and yellow, and it was fast. It cut through the creature like a knife through butter. There was a painful aborted screech as the two half of the monster fell around Ekko. There wasn’t even blood, as usual. It smelt like burnt meat. 

“Good shot,” he commented tonelessly. He refused to look at Piltie. Whether it was out of shame or out of fear of crossing his eyes, even he couldn’t say. What did the timer say now? Ekko had rewinded, so the clock should be back on, but what did it say? Did it count down to Ekko’s next presumed death, or to their eyes meeting again?

He was trying to get his breathing under control. Alright, so he had panicked and rewinded. What now? 

“Thanks!”

Was it a good thing? The rewind? He could leave and Piltie would never know.

“So,” Piltie continued, “you’re the Boy Who Shattered Time, uh?”

“Man,” Ekko corrected distractedly. It probably was a good thing, he thought. Really, that was his Soulmate? An arrogant Piltie with a magic gem and a death wish? Was the universe laughing at him?

“Sorry – Man Who Shattered Time. I need your expertise. I have this problem with my Soul Clock… And Time Mechanics are not exactly easy to find.”

“I told you, I’m not helping you out. Go away.”

“Come on, mate! We could help each other!”

“I doubt you have anything of interest for me,” Ekko snorted, remembering how Piltie had said being rubbish at science. “Magic does not interest me.”

“Good, ‘cause I’m rubbish at Magic,” Piltie said casually.

“What?” Ekko blurted out, bewildered. For a moment he stopped pretending to examine his Zero-Drive – which was the only excuse he had found to avoid making eye-contact. “But if you’re not an engineer, not a magician and not a police officer – no offense, but there’s just no way you’re one – then what the hell are you?”

“There more jobs than that in Piltover,” Piltie chuckled. “But that’s weird.”

“What’s weird?”

“You don’t know what I do. You knew about my True Shot Barrage, so I just assumed you had heard of me or my legend, but you don’t,” Piltie mused. 

“What legend?” Ekko asked, sweating nervously.

“I’m the Prodigal Explorer,” Piltie said with no small amount of pride.

“You’re an explorer?” Ekko repeated, astonished. He wasn’t going to lie: that sounded really cool.

“Explorer, Cartographer and Archeologist.”

Really, really cool. Okay, so maybe the universe wasn’t laughing that much at him. Piltie was a man of knowledge, but he wasn’t like all those idiots sitting in their labs or libraries gathering webs and spiders. He wasn’t engineer, which meant he wasn’t one of those Piltoverian stealing from Zaun. And he wasn’t one of those stuck up magicians who thought they could do better than science. That was… pretty nice. 

“Which brings me back to my problem,” Piltie carried on, getting back on topic. “There’s something wrong, either with my Soulmate, or with my Soul Clock. One of the two. And it’s painful. It’s okay if I’m at home, but when it happens when you’re climbing down a hundred feet tall wall in a Shurima ruin, it just isn’t. Even I don’t know how I survived that one.”

_And here comes the guilt_ , Ekko thought sarcastically. Because of course it had repercussions. He hadn’t thought of that when he had rewinded and decided on his own that Piltie should never know. Could he really send Piltie to his death just because… well, if he really was honest with himself, there was only one thing holding him back now: Piltie was a Piltie. And he didn’t want to end up with a Piltie. He had a dream for Zaun. 

“Listen,” Ekko sighed. “I have this device called the Zero-Drive. It allows me to rewind time for a few seconds. Everything gets back to the way it was, except I know how things are going to go. You and I we’ve talked about all this before. You just don’t remember.”

“Oh. So that’s how the True Shot Barrage got…”

“Yes.”

“That’s how you knew about it.”

“Yes – it was your idea. We weren’t doing okay against that thing, so we just bought time until you charged it, rewinded and… you know the rest.”

“Nice plan, Ezreal,” Piltie commented.

“No, I’m Ekko,” Ekko corrected, annoyed. 

“Was it your plan?”

“Erm no, I told you –“

“Then like I said,” Piltie repeated smugly, “Nice plan Ezreal.”

“Oh.”

“So I’ve told you about my problem before?” Piltie – no, Ezreal inquired.

“Yes. And I may have a solution.”

“But you don’t want to tell me,” Ezreal summarized. “Why? Is it dangerous?”

“No. It’s just… really problematic for me. I can help you. But if I help you, then I most likely lose all my dreams – everything I have worked for, everything I hoped for… I’ll lose everything.”

He couldn’t move to Piltover. He couldn’t abandon Zaun. And forcing Ezreal to live here? No way it was going to happen – he’d become a primary target for every enemy of Ekko. Yeah, he liked Ezreal well enough. He was… okay. He was okay. But he didn’t have time for Soulmates and Love, didn’t have time for compromises. He couldn’t go with Ezreal. Never.

“I understand,” Ezreal said softly after a while. He sat down next to Ekko who looked stubbornly at his feet just in case. “You know, I was born with magical powers. Everyone wanted me to go to a Magic School – and I mean everyone. My parents worked at the government, you see. It was my duty to go to that school and become a scholar of Magic. But when I was a kid, the only thing that interested me were the sewers.”

“The sewers?” Ekko frowned. “Why?”

“No reason, except that I didn’t know what was in them. So I started skipping my private lessons to go explore the sewers. I made a map of them – all of them. All of Piltover.”

“How old were you?” 

“Eight. My parents were furious, but my grandfather was delighted – he’s an archeologist too, you see. So he went behind their back and presented my map to the Academy of Exploration Geology, Archeology and Geography of Piltover. Long name for one simple objective: We want to know Runeterra upside down. Who lived where – what is the earth made of – where does that river go – and so on.”

“Sounds nice,” Ekko commented.

“ _Awesome_ ,” Ezreal corrected with a grin. “They took me in. Got my three diplomas at sixteen – didn’t care much for geology though. But then I realized it would be years before I could go on the field. Until then, it was going to be library, library, lab, library and more library. So I went on my own. I got scolded. I went on my own again. I got scolded again. I went on my own still. They threatened to fire me, even though I kept bringing back valuable knowledge. I told them to go ahead and fire me – wouldn’t stop me from going. Eventually, I won.”

“They mustn’t be happy with you, back home,” Ekko whistled.

“They _hate_ me,” Ezreal laughed. “They tried everything to convince me to stop going. What kind of life was that?” he parroted. “I was ruining my youth! I didn’t know what I was doing! What about my Soulmate – oh, they _loved_ that part. How I was being unfair to my Soulmate, running to my death instead of providing them with a home and a stable situation, forcing them to a lifetime of barely seeing me or loosing me young. Oh, yeah, they had speeches and speeches about it. But you know what?”

“What?” Ekko asked. Piltoverian were so stupid – not Ezreal, but all those old academics in their so-called City of Progress. Had they really tried to use _him_ , reckless independent Ekko, to convince Ezreal to _stay home_? 

“Screw my Soulmate. Screw stable life – I want _adventure_. Between my Soulmate and my life, I know what I’d choose. What I have _chosen_. The exploring, the archeology… that’s more than just my dreams, that’s who I am. So if my Soulmate isn’t happy with it, too bad for him. He’s trying to kill me anyway,” Ezreal joked. “So I understand your decision. I mean, I could stop exploring. The pains would just be chronic pains. It’s my choice to go out there despite the danger it represent. You’re not the only one making the decision here.”

_Yes I am_ , Ekko thought. _I am because I rewinded without asking you if you wanted to. I am making the decision on my own because I’ve taken from you the possibility to make the decision._

“And what if your Soulmate didn’t want to have a home with you?” Ekko suggested. “What if they were a bit like you? What if they were afraid you’d tie them up to a place?” 

Ezreal laughed. “Well good for both of us, I guess. But that’d be a perfect a scenario – I don’t think it’s going to work that way.”

“Maybe it is,” Ekko insisted, “because…” and then he realized why he shouldn’t have rewinded, why _of course_ it was going to be okay – from the very beginning… “because that’s what this whole Soulmate deal is all about, isn’t it? The universe giving us a perfect scenario? That’s what a Soulmate is. Not just any date or boyfriend or girlfriend, but the best match possible.”

“Huh,” Ezreal finally managed after a pause. “I’ve never thought about it that way before.”

“Me neither, to be honest,” Ekko admitted. They both chuckled lightly. Ekko raised his head and looked at the building in front of him. Half of its walls were missing, thanks to Ezreal’s True Shot Barrage. Only the very last one was untouched. “I think I can help you,” he finally said.

“Don’t,” Ezreal shook his head. “I didn’t tell you my life’s story so you’d help me. I did it because I wanted you to know I understood. And maybe also because I wanted to teach you a lesson.”

“A lesson? What lesson? Ekko asked curiously. 

“If you don’t want people to put all Zaunians in the same category, stop putting all Piltoverians in the same one.”

“Ah,” Ekko smirked, “that. Well I guess you’re cool. But the rest of Piltover is just dumb.”

“I have a deal for you: Everyone in Piltover is dumb, exception made of me _and_ my grandfather.”

“Alright then,” Ekko grinned. “Deal. But I’m really going to help you, you know.”

“Don’t give up your dreams,” Ezreal insisted.

“That’s the thing – maybe I can do both.”

“Really?”

“Really,” Ekko assured him. Slowly, he turned his head towards his. “But you and I are going to have a lot to talk about.”

And if it went badly, **he had just the tool for that**.

**Author's Note:**

> So, this comes from me wondering what would happen with Ekko's time-travel if he was in a soulmate-timer kind of universe. I'm not very happy with the ending, but since it's three times better than the other four I've written so far, I'm keeping this one.
> 
> Tell me what you think?
> 
> (Also I hope the overuse of "Piltie" did not annoy you. I tried to switch with "Blondie" once or twice, but it always reminded me of The Good The Bad And The Ugly, so I stopped...)


End file.
